Toyota has revealed a look at the autonomous backup system that could soon assist drivers to prevent car accidents.T
The firm kicked off its CES presentation on Monday with a visual re-enactment of a recent three-car accident in California that it claims could have been avoided with its Toyota Guardian technology.
According to Toyota, Guardian is designed to ‘amplify human control of the vehicle, not replace it.’
This means it can identify potential incidents and alert the driver – or make its own corrective response when necessary.
‘We all have a moral obligation to apply automated vehicle technology to save as many lives as possible, as soon as possible,’ said Dr. Gill Pratt, TRI CEO and Toyota Motor Corporation Fellow during the press conference in Las Vegas.
‘That’s why TRI’s primary focus over this past year has been to concentrate most of our effort on Toyota Guardian.
‘The driver is in control of the vehicle at all times, except when it detects an impending incident.’
The system, according to Pratt, ‘combines and coordinates the skills and strengths of the human with the machine.’
Toyota will include Guardian as standard equipment on all Toyota e-Palette platforms for the ‘Mobility as a Service’ (MaaS) market.
The system works much like the collaboration of a pilot and fighter jet, the firm explained.
In the future, however, Toyota is also planning to roll out a fully autonomous system dubbed Chauffer, which will take over for the driver entirely.
Toyota showed off how the self-driving capabilities could work with its Lexus TRI-P4 research vehicle.
But, this technology is still a ways off.
‘Technically, how do we train a machine about the social ballet required to navigate through an ever-changing environment, as well as, or better than, a human driver?’ Pratt said.
‘Sociologically, public acceptance of the inevitable crashes, injuries, and deaths that will occur due to fully autonomous Chauffeur systems may take considerable time.’
- Daily Mail